Reforms, Corruption and Justice

When a former Minister of Nigeria challenges Nigerian legislators to a public debate over their salaries and fringe benefits she is saying boldly and clearly that it cannot be business as usual on the cost of governance in Nigeria. In Brazil the President of the nation accepted the challenge of the demonstrators in Brazilian cities who disturbed the matches at the last FIFA Confederation Cup in June and made proposals to Parliament that certain percentage of Brazilian oil royalties shall be devoted to education and health. Yet in Nigeria strikes by Nigerian lecturers have become a way of life rather than lecturing in the universities because the lecturers claim they must strike to resurrect the comatose university system while their students become victims of the idle mind and hands with the attendant socio economic consequences. In Egypt, believe it or not former despot Hosni Mubarak has been freed by an Egyptian court and the judge said the judgement is final while the man who succeeded him as the elected President of Egypt Mohammed Morsi is in detention in a place that nobody knows in the land of the Pharaohs; and in Zimbabwe 89 years old President Robert Mugabe has been sworn in to seventh presidential term in a ceremony in Harare boycotted by the man he defeated Mr Tsivirangai. Surely, one can say c’est la vie or such is life as the French are wont to say.

But then in all these issues there is struggle going on and a titanic one at that, between those defending the status quo obviously because it pays them to do so at the expense of the rest of society. Just as in some cases those fighting for their perceived rights don’t bother if the baby is thrown away with the bath tub as long as they get what they want or what they think is their right. All these struggles however take place in an atmosphere that calls for justice and order as expected in a democracy powered by a rule of law which seem to have gone to sleep while on duty on its watch. Or why should Nigerian legislators abuse Oby Ezekwesili because she quoted authentic figures from the Federal Ministry of Finance on the salaries of the legislators? Why should Brazilian legislators now refuse to pass the reforms proposed by President Dilma Rousseff into law a month after the riots in Brazilian cities that saw these same legislators diving for cover for dear life at the time of the Confederation Cup? Why should Mugabe still be grinning like a school boy winning his first prize at his seventh coronation as it were, as the president of Zimbabwe after a rigged election like the opposition has done a lot to substantiate? And pray, why should Mohammed Morsi be in detention in Egypt while Mubarak who was carried to court on a sick bed, in a cage to face corruption charges , is now a free man – while the victor of the elections that strangled and confiscated the Mubarak regime to the dustbin of history is nowhere to be found in public? Obviously there is something rotten in all these events that leaves a sour taste in the mouth but then we have to face the facts that unpleasant as they may seem to observers, they are issues that will not go away just by wishing them so, and that is why we have to dissect them here and now today. At least to show that we are not totally befuddled by them and can at least occasionally read between the lines.

Taking them serially we start with the Ezekwesili revelations which are not original because she was quoting statistics from the Ministry of Finance. What is unique is that she has the guts to say that these salaries are not fair in a nation bedeviled with the poor welfare conditions of our citizenry and she should know, having been at the Mount Olympus of exploitation of the Nigerian masses as a Czarina of the sale of our public enterprises and as a Minister of Education. However, her records while in office are immaterial here, and should not disqualify her from the salutary task she has set herself in telling our legislators that their salaries are out of this world and make the cost of governance prohibitive. For her guts and diligence in sourcing for vital statistics on the matter she has my unfettered admiration and l enjoin our legislators to listen to her soft voice now or find out what happened to the rich and mighty in France with the storming of the Bastille during the French Revolution against the ruling class in France.

In Brazil the President a lady like our Oby Ezekwesili, Dilmar Roussef responded positively to the demands of the rioters that disrupted the staging of the Confederation Cup by FIFA in Brazil. One could say she did this to forestall a bigger disruption in the 2014 FIFA world Cup to be hosted by Brazil as well as the 2016 Olympics also slated by Brazil and one could be right. No president will want his or her nation to be disgraced after going to great and very expensive lengths to win such glamorous and prestigious hosting rights. But it is in the nature of the reforms to placate the demonstrators that the Brazilian president has won my heart while I have scant respect for the Brazilian legislators trying to stall her proposals in Parliament. This is because the demonstrators had complained about increased transport costs and long hours spent in traffic in commuting to and from work and the fact that Brazil’s riches in sports are not trickling down to the masses. So a responsive president proposed to Parliament a huge $14bn bill for transportation and another bill that gives a huge percentage of new oil royalties to education and health so that the masses can benefit from the riches of Brazil before next year’s World Cup and the 2016 Olympics and the legislators in Brazil are trying to stall on the passage of these public spirited and pragmatic socio economic palliatives. Really l feel sorry for these legislators as the Brazilian public knows the zeal and sincerity with which their president has pursued their welfare and should know at the appropriate time what to make of their elected representatives in Parliament.

In Nigeria however the issue of education especially in the ivory tower is being handled with levity and a rather cruel one at that. Now our youths spend eight years for a 4- year course and in most cases are not sure of when they are to graduate. Really I am fed up with the strikes and the lecturers as well as the government who is their employer as both have made a mockery of the tenet and objective of industrial relations which is industrial harmony. For now the Nigerian university system is in disequilibrium and shambles and the ultimate scapegoats are our Nigerian students who are the undoubtedly the future of this nation. However, the Minister of Finance complicated issues further and said the Federal government could not afford what the striking dons were asking for. She quoted a figure which the striking dons denied although they gave a lesser figure all the same . The Minister obviously missed the fact that the matter was beyond a budget issue and she should not have used the affordability concept in that context. Obviously people have asked if her children are schooling in any Nigerian university and she deserves the question and should answer or resign. All Ministers or legislators should also be asked that question and if their wards or children are schooling overseas they should just leave office. This may sound stern now, but a time will come when it will be a litmus test to know those who have a stake in leading Nigeria now and in the future and especially out of the present paralyzing strike syndrome. For now, I grieve with the Nigerian undergraduate in Nigerian universities who should be telling both the unyielding government and the strike loving lecturers what Shakespeare put in the mouth of the dying fighter in Romeo and Juliet – a plague on both your houses, for you have made worms meat of me‘.

I take Egypt and Zimbabwe together in that in terms of despotism and tyranny they are birds of the same feather. Indeed in both nations this week you may say of the two despots – Mubarak and Mugabe – as it is usually said of successful businessmen, that they were smiling all the way to the bank! Mubarak was flown by helicopter out of prison to a military hospital for house arrest, what ever that means as his generals have Egypt’s democracy very well under their boots and have used even the courts to free their master and leader in the best spirit of spirit de corps you can find any where in the world today . So where is justice in all that?. Yes, the army in Egypt has made a bloody ass of the law and made a mockery of the rule of law in that ancient land. But then, I blame the Muslim Brotherhood which was patient for decades till Providence gave it power to tame the army, its ancient enemy in Egypt. But the MU with Morsi, frittered its unique opportunity away in less than two years, because it forgot an ancient dictum of the law that he who comes to equity must come with clean hands, especially in a democracy. So the Brotherhood’s high handedness and undue haste in establishing its values estranged it to those with whom it upstaged Mubarak in the first street revolution of 2011, only for it and Morsi to be consumed by a fiercer democratic tsunami two years later, with its elected president nowhere to be found and its spiritual leaders back in the custody of Egypt’s power loving and blood thirsty army. As for Mugabe he has had his swearing in this week and must have sent a message to Mubarak on his new status of house arrest. Mugabe obviously must have blamed Mubarak for trusting the Americans in 2011 and must have assured him that what happened to Mubarak in Cairo could never have happened to him in Harare. And he could be right, as at 89, there is not much time to spare to enjoy his seventh coronation or swearing in after the ritual of a stage managed election, as expected of a democracy which he has hijacked again and again in Zimbabwe.